House Of Wax
by FracturedLittleWishes
Summary: In Dublin there is a Wax Works Museum, below that there is a place called the Sanctuary where Mages work, but when those Mages start mysteriously disappearing it's time to get the professionals in, Namely Skulduggery and Valkyrie.
1. Chapter 1

**_A new story! I promised myself I wouldn't start anything new till I'd at leats gotten more of my other stories done but it looks like I'm crap at keeping promises so... here is another story! I hope you like it, it's kindda like I Wanna Play A Game in the sense that it's based on a horror film, this time House Of Wax, who woulda thunk it heyy? So erm enjoy! _**

**_P.S. I know it may not make sense because the Sanctuary is no longer in the Wax Works but you can overlook that fact right? For me? Please?_**

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><p>There is a Wax Works museum in the heart of Dublin, everyone knows that.<p>

In the Wax Works museum there is a secret underground bunker where some of the most important mages work, not everyone knows this though.

Our story starts in the underground bunker, the Sanctuary to give it its full title. A man called Staven Weeper was briskly walking through the darkness of the Sanctuary.

He was not a particularly important man in the Sanctuary, mainly given the jobs no one else wanted to do, but he didn't mind; it was a job after all and Weeper wasn't the type of man who complained about anything really.

He was hurrying through the dark corridors of the Wax Works by now and was thinking about what he was going to do tonight; he might ring Amanda and ask if she fancied a pizza. He smiled when he thought of his Amanda; a girl who's face was maybe too round, and her figure too tall and broad, but Weeper found himself falling more and more in love with her everyday.

So he walked faster and faster everyday home from work just to spend more and more time with her, it was getting him in trouble, but doesn't love do that to you? He rounded the corner and stopped. He grumbled seeing the "out of order" sign on the door he usually took to get him home quicker.

Guess it's the long way home for you old Staven, he thought to himself determined to keep in a good mood. The silent wax models watched him with their glazed eyes as he moved quickly past him. Despite himself Weeper found himself shivering and felt the feel of ice cold fear creep into the pit of his stomach.

He turned down another dark corridor, darker than the last, hesitating only a moment before shaking off the feeling of fear and continuing on, thinking about what pizza he would order for himself when he got home.

Only Staven Weeper never made it home that night.

He turned too late to stop the lead pipe come whacking down on his head and was too weak to stop someone dragging his nearly unconscious form along the floor. The eyeless gaze of the wax figures watched as he was dragged back the way he came and though a door. As the door swung shut after him they saw the sign on it, Out Of Order.

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><p><strong><em>How was that? As always It'll take me awhile to get the story going but I quite like this so I hope you do too, Review please it'd be awesome XD<em>**


	2. Chapter 2

**_Hello. Nice to see you all again, it really has been too long. But that is the curse of procrastination, I joke of course. I have been busy, I still am but I felt like writing something. So here it is...enjoy._**

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><p>Valkyrie Cain sighed as she stared blankly out of the window of the Bentley as it whizzed along the road, making the trees blur.<p>

"Why are we doing this?"

"Because Ravel wanted to have a nice cup of tea and talk about giving us all a raise,"

She raised a sceptical eyebrow, which he didn't see, before saying dryly, "Yeah, right before he holds out his hand and promises to take us to the land of rainbows, unicorns and cotton candy clouds. I'm not dumb Skulduggery, just tell me what he said on the phone."

"He said he wanted us to check out the Sanctuary. Said there were some strange going ons that he wanted us to take a look at."

"What kind of weird going ons?"

"The kind where people disappear and don't come back."

"Oh."

"Yes. Oh indeed."

"So what do you think it is? Do you think it's the Americans? Trying to scare the country into asking for help, so they can swoop in and save the day, returning the missing mages as they go?"

"How would they do that?"

"Breaking in most likely."

"I don't know, thinking about it, it should be impossible. The Sanctuary is one of the most guarded places ever. It's unheard of anyone breaking in."

"Which makes renders my idea pretty much surplus right?"

"Not completely. At this stage it would be silly to write off any theories at this stage."

"But I though you said it was impossible."

"It is."

"So why would the idea that breaking into the Sanctuary -which is impossible- be sensible."

"Because it's fun to do the impossible. And Americans like fun as much as the next person."

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><p>"You're late," Ravel hurried over to them.<p>

"We had traffic problems."

"It's fine." Ravel was smiling, but Valkyrie could see the dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep and his hair looked as if he'd been running his hands through them.

"So, what seems to be the problem, you said something about disappearances…" Skulduggery trailed off, as he realised the room and had gone deathly quiet and everyone was now staring at them warily. Ravel looked exasperated and began ushering Valkyrie and Skulduggery out of the lobby, all eyes following them as they left. Once they were safely inside Ravel's office, he turned to them suddenly looking very tired and small.

"Sit, please." He motioned half-heartedly towards two seats and sat himself in his chair. Valkyrie sat in the chair in question, while Skulduggery remained stood up, arms folded, staring at Ravel.

"What's wrong, Erkstine." His voice tinged with an amount of concern.

Ravel smiled wearily, "Are you worried Skulduggery? Surely one would think you had grown accustomed to disaster by now."

"I'm worried about you. You don't seem to have been getting any sleep."

"How can I sleep when people are disappearing every night from right under my nose as well? If I can't protect my own staff then what hope do I have protecting the rest of the world? Especially as this Darquesse business seems to have reared it's head again."

Valkyrie squirmed in her chair and swiftly changed the subject, deliberately not looking at Skulduggery. "So these disappearances?"

"Ah yes. Four so far. One each week and evey week for the past month."

"Can we have a list of the names?" Skulduggery spoke up, holding out his hand.

"Yes," he passed him a pile of about five files. "The bottom four are the mage's who've gone missing files, we always do a file on all our staff; medical test results, background, family. The top one is the file I have compiled so far out of all the information on the disappearances; where and what time they were last seen and things like that. Hopefully they'll be of some help to you..."

He stopped as the door opened and a young, pretty woman with glasses and brunette hair pulled up in chignon gave Ravel a look. "Ah, yes of course. One moment Molly and I will have finished in here." The girl called Molly looked relived and left the room quietly after giving Valkyrie a shy smile. Ravel saw Valkyrie looking after the girl. "Our new Administrator: Molly. Sweet girl, quiet but sweet as far as I can tell. You can go to her if you need anything because, I regret to say, I will have to leave you. Elder business I'm afraid, Ghastly will be joining me also I'm afraid."

Valkyrie stood up as he made to leave, and shook his hand. Ravel then turned to Skulduggery. "You think you'll figure out what's going on here?"

"Always do. Don't worry, no one else will go missing."

Ravel hesitated a moment before leaning in and whispering something to Skulduggery Valkyrie didn't hear. In response Skulduggery shook his head. The news seemed to cheer Ravel, who firmly shook Skulduggery's hand before leaving.

Once the door had swung shut Valkyrie turned to Skulduggery. "What did he say to you just then?"

"He said "Do you think they're dead?""

"You shook your head. Do you think they're alive then?"

He looked at her for a long moment. "I doubt it."

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><p><em><strong>R&amp;R please, tell me what you think, I'm hoping to get alot of writing done over the holidays (woop, no more school! .) so perhaps you will be seeing a bit more of me...:)<strong>_


	3. Chapter 3

Meh, next bit to this. Old.

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><p>Valkyrie studied the piece of paper Ravel had given them. After he'd left, Skulduggery and she had been shown to another room further along the corridor where they were told they'd been assigned to work for however long it would take them to find out what was going on.<br>It was the same room she and Skulduggery were now sat, reading through all the papers and files they'd been given in silence.  
>Sighing she put the paper down and reached for the second file on the table. Her heart thudded when she saw whose name was neatly typed on the cover.<p>

_Weeper. S._

The photo paper-clipped to the front cover showed her a man with a greying flock of thinning hair, a goofy, kind grin, wearing a tweed suit and an hideously up-beat tie. She studied it a moment before opening the file, at this man who she'd met only on a few rare occasions, in which she'd always made life difficult for him. She'd held a special place in her heart for him, one where she placed all her sweet, no hopers, Scapegrace among them.  
>It struck her as odd, that a man like this, which was so nothing should ever be something. Something like a sorcerer, someone with power that mortals could only ever dream about or write books on. But, she supposed, that was life. Not every sorcerer she'd met matched the mortal expectation; they weren't all good people with movie-star looks and winning smiles. She supposed perhaps, that if the mortals really knew, they would be disappointed.<p>

"Are you okay?" Skulduggery's voice found her, bringing her back from her thoughts. "Yeah," she said softly. "Look." She held the file up for his inspection. He looked at if for a moment, not saying anything. "Ah."

"Yep, ah."

"Does it bother you?"

"Does what?"

"That it's him? That it's someone you knew, albeit not very well. But you knew him nevertheless. Does it bother you that he's a name?"

"I don't know. It shouldn't. Stuff like this shouldn't bother me, but it does."

"Why shouldn't it? You're only human."

"But it doesn't bother you."

He tilted his head. "Interesting."

"What?" She said, frowning.

"Two of the people who went missing were blood-type A+. Could be a lead."

Valkyrie blinked, shocked by this sudden change of direction in their conversation. "Erm….no. Staven Weeper was type A, and," she reached for the forth file, and flicked through. "Miss Black's blood type was B. Nothing connecting them." She kept her frown to herself, he'd already seen Melody Black's file, surely he'd have known he'd have know she was B and it would have been out of character for Skulduggery to not remember that. So why had he changed the subject?

He cleared his throat, "Okay, so four sorcerers missing and nothing connecting them that we can see. That tells us what?"  
>"That either it's something we can't see or that these attacks were completely random. The person taking these people did it because they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."<p>

"At the moment that does seem to be the most likely explanation. Which also unfortunately makes it much harder for us to predict their movements. If we knew who they are targeting we could work from that but..." He trailed off.

"But we don't."

"No."

"So it's the hard way?"

"So it would seem."

"Isn't it always?"

"I refer back to my last statement."

Valkyrie sighed and picked up a floor map of the sanctuary and studied it. "Does the sanctuary not have any sort of CCTV cameras installed that we could look at?"

"No, it doesn't."  
>"Well, that sucks."<br>"They've never needed, the Sanctuary is impenetrable. And with the Cleavers on guard it is uncommon for things to go astray, so they don't find any need for it."  
>"Typical big-headed, egos of Sorcerers. If they would lower themselves to use a simple mortal invention they could have easily solved this case themselves. Sometimes you people do like to over complicate things."<br>They both sat in silence for a moment, letting Valkyrie's comment wash away when they heard a third voice.  
>"I know where you can find a camera."<p>

Valkyrie and Skulduggery spun to face the direction of the new voice. Peaking in through the door was Molly, carrying what looked like a tray of tea and biscuits.

"What are you doing here? You are not supposed to be here." Skulduggery's voice was unusually cold, making Valkyrie frown.

She shrank back, her face growing redder. "I'm...I'm sorry. The Grand Mage told me not to disturb you but..but...well I thought that you'd been in here such a long time without any food, so I brought you something." She held up the tray as way of evidence. On it were two cups of what looked like tea and three plates of different types of assorted snacks. Valkyrie's stomach growled, she hadn't realised it but she was starving. "But you're right, I should go. I'm so sorry. It won't happen again." She turned to leave, her face downcast.

Valkyrie turned to Skulduggery and mouthed, "Meanie."

"Wait, girl. Come back." Molly turned back to them. "Come in girl, you are no use to us outside the door." Molly dropped her head and scurried into the room, taking care to shut the door as quietly as possible before setting the tray down on the table. Her eyes flashed up and Valkyrie gave her a comforting smile, causing her to drop her gaze and her face to redden.

"What were you saying before?"

Molly's head dipped even lower, "The Sanctuary doesn't have any type of camera system installed but the museum does. The mortals installed it when this place first opened."

"Wouldn't it have been turned off when this place was emptied?" Skulduggery said after digesting this information.

Molly shook her head earnestly. "There hasn't been any mortals in the museum since before the Serpine incident and all mortals were kept away from the site after so no one but Sancutary mages were allowed in the building. And as no one knew about the security system I guess there was no one to turn it off, which would suggest that they were still operational."

Skulduggery sat for a moment, his palms together under his chin while Molly and Valkyrie waited to hear his verdict.

"Molly."

"Er, yes?"

"Could you get us a map to museum upstairs please?"

"I-I think so. I think we have one on the system somewhere. But I'm not sure the cameras will be on there."  
>"That doesn't matter, Valkyrie and I could do with a little exercise after being cooped up in here all day."<p> 


End file.
